Hi Omdeep,
At 10:43 10-12-2015, OMDEEP GOKHOOL wrote:
>Please find a summary of the research I have done on 'Freedom Of
>Information act' below.
>
>Introduction
>
>The legal system in the Mauritius is governed by both by principles
>derived both from the French Code Napoleon and the British common
>law, combining both the civil and common law practices. The Republic
>of Mauritius is a parliamentary democracy modeled on the British system.
>
>Considering this fact I decided to based my research on the 'Freedom
>of Information Act 2000' which is is an Act of Parliament of the
>Parliament of the United Kingdom that creates a public "right of
>access" to information held by public authorities. It works in two
>ways,firstly by making it compulsory for public authorities to
>publish certain information and secondly allowing members of public
>to request for information. After going through the table of content
>there were 5 sections which interested me and I read them and
>summarized them below.
Thanks for sharing your research with the mailing list. As you did
not mention
http://lists.elandnews.com/archive/mauritius/internet-users/2015/04/0775.html
I assume that you missed some information which was available in the
mailing list archives. There is a model law on access to information
for Africa.
During our weekly meeting, Ish commented about a report about media
law and ethics in Mauritius {1]. He also commented about whether
copying and pasting laws from other countries is a good idea. My
response was about whether it is better to take a model law and adapt
it to Mauritius or whether it is better to write a law without using
foreign laws as a model. Ish also mentioned an event in 2012 [2]
related to FOIA.
Your research includes the following:
- General right of access to information held by public authorities
- Request for information
- Fees
- Time
- Means by which communication to be made
You did not express any opinion about those items. Instead of
comparing the models from different countries to find out which one
is the most appropriate for Mauritius, you decided to base your
research on the law in the United Kingdom only. There are 88
sections in that law. Your research only covered the "right to
information". In your opinion, creating a "right of access" and
making it compulsory ensures that anyone can get information from
public authorities. Will you be stating that at the workshop as the
opinion of the Mauritius Internet Users?
Regards,
S. Moonesamy
1.
http://attorneygeneral.govmu.org/English//DOCUMENTS/MEDIA%20LAW%20-%20PRELIMINARY%20REPORT.PDF
2.
http://mauritius.usembassy.gov/20121608_africom_ivlp.html
Received on Thu Dec 10 2015 - 19:56:48 PST